North Africa

Khartoum. 27th September 2013. Sudanese Human Rights Monitor (SHRM) follows with great concern the gross human rights violations that accompany the ongoing peaceful protests since 22nd September 2013, especially in Medani and Khartoum. People were protesting in different locations in Medani, Khartoum, Khartoum North and Omdurman against the government decision to cut subsidy of oil products, and consequently increase prices of fuel and food items. Police and security have dealt with these protests violently leading to killings in several cases.

WLUML calls for the immediate release of FEMEN activists, including Amina Tyler, and demands that the Tunisian government drop all charges. WLUML does not endorse FEMEN’s tactics or specific platforms, but we find the imminent imprisonment of FEMEN activists for exercising their right to freedom of expression to be a violation of fundamental human rights. However we may feel about nude protest as a method, it is critical to defend the right of free expression, particularly in the post-dictatorship countries of the Middle East.

Sudanese lawyer Asma Ahmed, a human rights activist, has been detained incommunicado by the National Security Services since 4 May. She has not been charged with any offence, and is at risk of torture and other ill-treatment.

The Sudanese government has started a new arrest campaign against Nuba activists, and specially Nuba Christians. Most of the detainees were detained in Khartoum and in Southern and North Kordofan. Below is an updated list of the detainees and the people in danger of detention. Detainees are also facing inhuman treatment and torture, as some of them are elders and suffer from health problems.

This report reflects the situation of Sudanese Women Human Rights Defenders during the period from 2009-2012. It highlights the main challenges facing WHRDs in Sudan, and documents the escalating violations against them by state and non-state actors. The work of Sudanese WHRDs in the period covered in this report is the most risky and affected by the fundamental changes which took place during the last 3 years.

Khadija Mohamed Badr is a Nuba woman was detained in Kadugli on November 11th , 2012;in the large campaign of arrests of Nuba women during the last two months of 2012. Khadija was detained with more than 30 women early November 2012 in suspicion of their relation with the Sudanese Peoples liberations Army/ North -SPLM/N activities in Nuba mountains. On February 6th,2013, Khadija Badr, one of the women detainees was transferred to Khartoum General Hospital after her health was severely deteriorated as a result of the torture on the hands of the Sudanese security.

The Sudanese security in Kadugli the capital of South Kordofan/Nuba mountains state , started arrest campaign against women in Kadugli , the campaign started in early November 2012 where women had been called for investigations in Security offices in Kadugly about their relations to the Sudanese Peoples liberation Movement/ North , which fighting the Sudanese government in the region since June 2011. Witnesses informed Arry that women in the first week had been released always in the end of the day but the campaign intensified since November 10th,2012, where 15 women called for investigations and not been released until now.

In 2012, two women in Sudan were sentenced to death by stoning. Layla Ibrahim Issa, who had a six-month old infant, was sentenced to stoning under Article 146 of the Sudanese Criminal Code. Our legal centre worked on Layla’s case. Layla’s husband placed a complaint against her, saying that she bore a child from another man in his absence. Initially she had no lawyer, and was not assigned one by the judge. Luckily, lawyers from the centre met with Layla, represented her, and drafted an appeal which was accepted and resulted in her release.

"I don't see myself as an Egyptian citizen in this constitution. I don't see my future in this constitution," she said.

Abdallah voted against the proposed constitution and now says it must not be left in its current version. It won't be easy to change, she says, but she hopes to see the text challenged through "legal ways and on the streets."